Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) is well known as optical reflectometry used to measure transmission loss of an optical circuit and diagnose a failure point (for example, see Non-Patent Document 1). In OFDR, output light emitted from a frequency sweep light source is branched into two, and an interference beat signal that is generated by interference between light reflected from a measurement target and one of pieces of branched light is analyzed to measure a distribution of backscattered light intensity from the measurement target in the optical propagation direction.
That is, in OFDR, the output light emitted from the coherent light source whose optical frequency is swept is branched into two, and one of the pieces of branched light is inputted as measurement light on the measured optical circuit and the other piece of branched light is multiplexed with backscattered light (reflected light that the measurement light is reflected and generated at each position corresponding to a propagation distance of the measured optical circuit) as local light emission. The interference beat signal generated by the multiplexing of the branched light and the backscattered light is detected to analyze a spectrum of the interference beat signal, and a reflectance at each position corresponding to the propagation distance of the measured optical circuit is measured as intensity of a spectrum frequency component.
Non-Patent Document 1: “Optical frequency domain reflectometry in single-mode fiber”, W. Eickhoff and R. Ulrich, Applied Physics Letters 39 (9), pp. 693-695.